


a steady presence

by WelcomeToTheBadlands



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fix-It, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:22:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23432341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WelcomeToTheBadlands/pseuds/WelcomeToTheBadlands
Summary: the war is over. the first order is gone. it's time for people to let go and be happy.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 1
Kudos: 15





	a steady presence

**Author's Note:**

> for @bbstarfighter on twitter

Thirty seconds. That’s all it was for Rey to feel like she had found everything and lost it at the same time. Ben resurrected her, and they kissed, and she saw a whole life with him. One where they had two children and they lived a happy life, away from war and famine. Her children were loved, and she was loved. And then Ben collapsed onto the ground and closed his eyes. “No,” She said, “no, no. You’re not doing that. You can’t,” Tears were streaming down her face when she saw him take his last breath, “ _No,”_ She was about to panic, trying to think of all the things that she could do when she heard someone speak.

“He’s going to be okay, Rey.” Rey glanced up to see them. The Jedi. The ones that she had been calling out for.

“Master Skywalker?” Luke nodded and knelt down next to his nephew. “How can you say that, he’s dead?”

“Not really,” Leia stepped from the crowd, and Rey’s lip trembled. She remembered how much more shattering Leia’s death had felt to the force. “I sacrificed my life so that my son could live, he’s clinging to life. But he needs to be healed quick.”

“I can do that,”

“No,” The both of them said. “He gave you his life force so that you could live, he wouldn’t you to just give it right back.”

“But—”

“There’s a reason why we’re here, Rey.” It was another Jedi that stepped out from the mix. An older man. Then she realized who it was. Ben’s namesake. Obi Wan Kenobi. “We have lived many years in this afterlife without anything to do, and this is why. He deserves a new chance. A new life. After everything was taken from him, it’s the only way to bring balance to the force.”

“After my sin,” Anakin stepped forward too, “just promise me that you’ll take care of my grandson.”

Thirty seconds. It took thirty seconds for Rey to get everything that she ever wanted back. When she saw Ben start to breathe again, the Jedi were gone and she could no longer feel them in the force, but she didn’t care. He jolted up and she cried out. “Ben! Oh, kriff you scared me.”

“Ow,” He muttered.

“Are you okay?”

“Did I die and go to heaven?”

“Okay, I think that you’re okay.” Rey said. “You are very much alive,”

“I am? Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Well then, that’s a plus.” Rey helped pull him up. Supporting him as he got his bearings again. “So, that kiss…”

“There’s more where that came from, trust me.” She told him. “But we need to get off of Exegol first.”

“I agree,” He told her. “Let’s go.”

Rey was grateful for a lot of things after leaving Exegol. The first thing was that Ben was alive. The second thing was that her friends were alive. And lastly, now that this war was over, she could finally do the things that she wanted to do. She could finally live. “Hey,” Ben said, “I’m alive.”

“You are,” Rey said. She grabbed his hand, tight. “I thought I lost you for a second,”

“I’m sorry,” He said.

“You have to swear to me, that you’re never going to do that again. I don’t think I could bare it if you left.”

“I won’t leave,” He told her, “not unless you want me to.”

“I don’t want you to.” Rey told him. “I need you. We’re a dyad,”

“We’re more than a dyad,” Ben said, “I hope that you know that I have feelings for you. And not because of your power, but because of everything. You’re everything to me.”

“You’re everything to me,” Rey told him, “and I’m glad that I can take your hand now.”

It was really something, that Rey was able to still have him when she thought for a second that she was about to lose him. She could tell that Ben was feeling weird too, because he was silent for a while. He had been so sure that he was going to die when he did that for her, and he didn’t, because his family and the other Jedi gave their residual energy to him in order to live. “Do you feel that?” He asked her when they got closer to the Resistance. Rey reassured him that they wouldn’t be staying there long, she just needed to make sure that he saw the medbay before they left.

“Feel what?”

“It’s almost like balance,” Ben told her, “peace in the Force.” Rey had been too busy piloting the Falcon to really notice anything, but now that she did, she closed her eyes and let it sink in. There was a peace that was starting to settle over the galaxy. She could feel it now.

And she was happy.

Ben was getting there.

“We can start a life,” Rey told him, “away from all this. I never got to be a real person because of Jakku and then all the Jedi stuff. You never got to be a real person because of the Academy and then Snoke. Now, we can do whatever we want to do. What do you want to do?”

“Honestly,” Ben sat back in his seat, “I’ll go wherever you want to go. I just don’t want to be alone anymore.”

“You’re not alone,” Rey said, “I promise. There’s nothing that can stop us from being together now.”

“You know that I don’t know how to do this,” Ben told her, “how to be in a relationship, how to be a good partner, how to live. I’ve never done any of it before.”

“It’s okay,” Rey told him. “I don’t know either. But so far you’ve done a good job. With the being a good partner part.” Ben was silent for a little before Rey said something else, “You know I’m serious, right. You saved me in the throne room, you came to the rescue with Palpatine. You didn’t leave me for dead, like Poe and Finn did. Plus uh—that kiss was pretty nice.”

“Was it now?” Ben smirked. Rey could look at that forever.

“Yeah,” She said, “you know what I liked almost just as much?”

“What?”

“Your smile,” She was pretty sure that was the first time that she saw Ben blush. Getting to the Resistance wasn’t that hard. But it was proving difficult to make it off the ship. Rey wasn’t sure that she was ready to be asked questions, if she was ready to have to hurt people to make sure that Ben was okay.

“Hey,” Ben put his hand in hers, “everything will be okay.” It was something that couldn’t be guaranteed, but she knew that he was trying to be strong for her.

“I love you,” She said, and she meant it. Without Ben, life would be looking a whole lot bleaker right now. She would be going back to people who left her for dead, people who didn’t really know her the way that Ben did. They tightened their grips around each other’s hands and stepped out into the festivities that the Resistance was having. She was glad that most of the people weren’t paying attention, that all eyes weren’t on her. She hadn’t quite thought of what she would say yet. “I love you,” She said it again and prayed to herself that no one would say anything, that she could get him to the medbay and not have to worry about it. That the two of them could slip away and not be questioned after that.

The two of them made it to the medbay, but she knew that people saw the two of them. “Are you okay?” Ben asked. “Anything hurt?”

“You’re the one that’s worse off than I am.” Rey gave him a small smile before a medic got to work looking over him. She was glad that the person didn’t seem to know or care who Ben was, she just got to work trying to assess the damage.

“You need to be looked at too,” He told her.

“I will later, I’m fine right now.” She told him, “I just want to make sure that you’re okay first, okay?”

“I’ll be fine,” Ben told her, “make sure that you’re okay.”

__

It turned out that Rey had a concussion. Which was something that she had a lot of when she was little, but she never had anything like that treated properly. “You’ll be okay,” She told herself, “you’ll be okay.” It was still hard to believe that the war was over. That she and Ben were going to be okay. She needed to let herself be happy—but her brain was still reeling, and she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do now. What was she supposed to do now that the war was over? The obvious thing was to continue being a Jedi, to raise a new order, but that wasn’t the thing that she wanted to do.

She didn’t want to be part of some bigger order. She didn’t want power. She didn’t want to be caught up in this trap that everyone else got caught in. The trap that the Skywalkers had been in. She didn’t want a legacy on her shoulders.

What was she supposed to do now?

She wasn’t sure.

She just wanted one thing.

She wanted Ben.

Okay, maybe two. She wanted to be happy too.

When she was back with Ben, she was happy. The two of them sat next to each other just holding each other’s hands for a few minutes before he told her that she should go find her friends. She nodded. She still had dried blood on her and was pretty sure that she looked like she was a mess. “Hey, I’ll still be here when you get back, I promise.” He told her.

She wished that she didn’t doubt him. It’s just this feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach that she can’t get rid of, something in her brain that made her very aware that this could have gone so much differently. It made every step she took painful, because she was so aware of everything that she could have lost.

When Poe and Finn saw her, it wasn’t as happy as she had hoped it would be. She wasn’t sure what she had expected or hoped, but they hugged, and it was fine. “I thought you were dead,” Finn told her.

“I was.”

Both of them looked at her funny, and for some reason her mind went back to when she lay on Exegol, cold and alone. When she was a kid, at night when the cold winds would blow through the AT-AT unit that she was in, she thought that she would die the same way, cold and alone like many of the people that were stuck on that planet. They were going to leave her there. “What do you mean?” Poe asked.

“I was, Ben Solo saved my life.”

__

She told them everything. She told them about the throne room, about everything after that, about the bond, about Exegol. And she knew that they wouldn’t be able to understand her bond with Ben, no one could. If Leia was still alive, maybe she could. She told them about the things that Snoke did and every time that Ben saved her and at the end she said, “You can’t stop me from saving what I love,” And the both of them stood there, looking confused.

“Do you think that he wants to start over?” Was the first thing that Poe asked.

“Yes,”

“Then—I guess that’s that, he wants to start over.” Finn said. His voice was stiff, but Rey could tell that he still cared, about her. He was concerned. “Are you sure that he won’t hurt you?”

“Honestly, I’ve hurt him more than he’s hurt me, but we’re not going to do that to each other anymore.”

“Then we support you,” They both said. It was weird, them agreeing on something like that.

“What?”

“Rey, the war just ended, if you think this is right then I think that you have the best judgement.” Finn told her. “I don’t like Re—Ben, but maybe if he changes and we meet later down the line that will change. The two of you, if you know what you’re doing, you should go and we won’t stop you.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Yeah,” Poe said, “we’re sure. Leia would’ve wanted Ben to have a good life—and if you want to be in his life and he’s happy about that then who are we to stop it? Plus, I don’t think I can deal with more death. Like Finn said, the war ended.”

“Thank you, for understanding.”

“We only want the best for you,” Rey felt warm, then. Her anxiety quieting and turning into something else. Allowing herself to finally just be in the moment and appreciate the fact that _the war was won._ Maybe she didn’t know what was going to happen to her or Ben, and maybe she didn’t know how things would go from here but that was okay, because that was part of life.

She was allowed to do whatever she wanted. “Thank you,” She told the both of them, “thank you so much.”

__

Ben didn’t stay long enough to really talk to anyone, he didn’t want to, but he did go and see the marker for his mother’s grave. He just needed to see it. He took out a shaky sigh before saying, “I’m sorry that I didn’t come home earlier, you deserved that.”

“She would’ve wanted you to be happy,” Ben turned, because that wasn’t Rey that said that. It was a smaller woman, one that he remembered from a briefing that Hux gave about the people that had infiltrated the Finalizer. _Rose_ was her name. “Sorry to sneak up on you, I’m Rose.”

“Ben,”

“It’s nice to meet you,”

“Nice to meet you too,”

“Leia and Rey, they’d talk about you sometimes.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, the General—she always just wanted to know that you were okay.” Ben could feel his eyes burning. “Force, I’m sorry if I’m making it worse but uh—I’m glad that you’re not on that side anymore.”

“Thanks, I should uh—go find Rey.”

“Right,” Rose said, “maybe we’ll see each other around.”

“Right, maybe.”

Ben wasn’t sure if he did okay in the ‘interacting with people’ department, but he’d like to think that if things kept going like that, he would be fine. Rey would be fine. They were going to be fine. They met back up at the medbay and Rey looked happier than she had been before, which was a relief. “Everything go over well?”

“Yeah,” Rey said, “are you ready to go?”

“I am, are you?”

“Yeah,”

“I want to fly—if that’s okay with you?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?” She grinned. “Come on. Let’s go.”

__

Going anywhere with Rey was exhilarating. It was something that Ben didn’t think he would ever get used to. The fact the two of them were going off on their own to do whatever they wanted and start their own life was kind of mindblowing to him. The fact that he was in the Falcon, flying it was mindblowing. But here he was. The two of them were silent for a bit before Rey said, “Hey, Ben. Guess what?”

“What?”

“You made it,” She said. Ben glanced at her and for a second the both of them had tears in her eyes before Rey wiped hers away and planted a kiss on his cheek. “And I couldn’t be more proud of you.”

Neither of them knew where they would go, but that was okay because they were both there. Rey told him that she wanted to go to as many places as possible, she wanted to see things that she had never gotten to see before, experience things that she had never gotten to experience. They ended up on Naboo, and Ben could say with all of his heart that he had never seen a better sight than Rey’s smile.

She was so excited and giddy, and was talking about how after the two of them got some rest, they would go out and explore. Ben just smiled and nodded. “God, have I told you how much I love trees? I never really got to appreciate them this much, I just want to climb them and oh—does it rain here?”

“Yep, it rains here.”

“Good,” She said, “I love rain.” Ben did not, but he was sure that Rey would make him like the rain a lot more than he had previously.

“We should get some rest,” Ben said.

“Or—”

“Or?”

“I don’t have a concussion anymore and you’re not injured and—” Ben could see her blush and through the bond he knew what she was thinking. He started blushing too because he had never done it before. The thing was, he knew that Rey had never done it either so it wasn’t really an issue of trying to impress her but more a thing of he had never seen another person naked before and he spent so long trying to stay away from that because Snoke told him that it was bad. “We don’t have to do it if you don’t want to though.”

“No, I do, I do.” He said. “I really do, I just—never—I don’t know how to-“

“I don’t really either,” Rey shrugged, “we could figure it out together you know.”

And there it was.

He was getting hard. “Okay,” They moved to a cot. Both eager to get their hands on each other. Their first time was awkward, but not in the kind of way where it was embarrassing. It was just weird, trying to find out what they liked and didn’t like. Rey took one look at Ben’s dick and then told him that she wasn’t sure that it would fit. “Ssh, it’ll be okay. Just got a stretch you a bit,” Ben put one finger in her and she gasped a little. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” She said, “it feels good.”

“Think you can take one more? You’re so tight, sweetheart.”

“Fuck, yes.” He wasn’t quite sure what to do from there, so he crooked his fingers and gauged by Rey’s reaction, bringing his thumb up to rub on her clit. “ _Oh,”_ Was that good? It sounded good, so he was going to assume it was good. Soon, she was sitting up and kissing him. “This was good,” She said, “but I want you inside me, right now.” He wasn’t sure that it was possible for him to get any harder than he already was, but he did.

She grabbed his dick and positioned herself, sinking down on him slowly and whimpering a bit. Rey felt so good, and the bond seemed to be heightening his arousal more than it ever had before. “Fuck,”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, give me a second.” She took in a deep breath.

“If it hurts, we can—”

“No, Ben. It’s good. You’re just big,” When Rey started moving, Ben wasn’t sure that he was ready for it, but it was the best feeling in his life. Rey bent down and pressed another kiss into his neck, and they gained a little bit of rhythm. Ben could feel himself edging closer. “You can cum first,” Rey said.

“No,”

“Ben,” he groaned a little bit and brought his hand back up to Rey’s clit, rubbing this thumb in circles. That seemed to do the trick, because when she came, Ben followed next.

She fell off him and smiled, still trying to catch her breath. “That was great.” Rey said.

“Yeah,” He said. “Really great.”

__

The next day the two of them set out to explore Naboo, looking out at the nature surrounding them. “What’s that?” Rey pointed to a blue butterfly that flitted across their view.

“That’s a butterfly,” He said.

“It’s beautiful,”

“Yeah, it really is.” It was like an omen really. Ben had never really believed in signs of good luck but when he saw that his heart warmed and he just knew—Rey and him were going to be happy.


End file.
